[1]
More active administration of both, Masters and Minion
The keyword here was "both". Minion was left to itself. It is a bit sad to read how that seems to not be an issue to some players. There were a lot of new players who played RAGL for the very first time. Some of them seemed to not understand the rules or how RAGL works, they seemed to not understand that they have to organize games themselves for a while etc. Should the focus have not been on them?
Things I take an issue with:
[1a] When being challenged by a player why certain players were promoted directly into Masters, the response was very aggressive and personal in nature ("Why do you ask? Are you angry because you were not promoted?"). This is not acceptable. That person dropped out a few days after, even though he said it had nothing to do with the response.
[1b] It was after 2-3x weeks visible (in minion chat) that certain players have lost interest in finishing the season. While there were people ready to step in (ex: Kaution, who got super excited to play
), these zombies were identified too late. When I tried to get some more active players in, the response was "too late" and when being questioned, the 2nd response was in the usual aggressive tone: "that is none of your business".
[1c] I tried hard to motivate players to finish their games, to play them at any given Sunday etc. Explained the rules when questions appeared. Admin activity: "Hey, you got 2x week left", "Hey, I freeze the table tomorrow".
[1d] The table was frozen when 2x players could have still made it to the 3rd place. The admin seemed to not care about it or at least acknowledge the situation at all, even though both players agreed to make a decision match. Unfortunately, that never took place. He just froze the table, closed the channel and called it a day.
(2)
Trying to be more nice to the players, especially to new ones
[2a] I knew him before, but I was still surprised by the very aggressive comments which were made at the very first game being casted: ILM vs morkel. Is that really our standard? Check the Youtube video. Maybe people are used to that, but I was not. I guess others who will join this won't be prepared for that either.
[2b] Responses when being challenged on certain decisions were always very aggressive. Maybe it is here the same, many are used to it and choose to ignore it. I really don't care how I am treated, but I can't stand it if others are treated like shit by people in power. I also think an admin should always stay calm and respond in a civil tone, even when the raised issue was poorly phrased.
[2c] BioMacMen posted 73x (!) Minion videos in just a few weeks. Then one day, it is announced out of nowhere that Kaution is the official caster. I immediately intervened and told Bio that he can ignore that and just cast whatever he wants to. Bio responded to the admin with "What do you mean by that"?. Guess what happened? He stopped casting after that entirely. Maybe life got in the way, but that should have never happened. Either the admin knew nothing about it, or choose to ignore it, both are bad.
[2d] When I raised an issue about a map, apparently without enough proof, the first reaction was again pretty aggressive. I don't expect an admin to immediately take action and find a solution. But a simple "thanks for the issue, we will look into it. Until we know more, the map is banned" would have been enough. I know he reacted that way because of me, but what kind of example does it set for others? What if someone else reads it and also find an issue? Will that person then post it? I am not so sure about it.
[2e] I think it is pretty disrespectful to make comments like "OpenRA devs this, OpenRA devs that", or to say "yeah those OpenRA mods suck". First of all, these people put a massive amount of their private time into building something we can use for free. Just because one disagrees with the direction does not justify those pretty negative comments. They are also not at all productive.
[2f] Post Season: (i) reacting negatively in the forum feedback thread, (ii) reacting in a defiant manner to a PM asking if he would consider to step down, instead posted a screenshot of the PM in the public chat with a video saying "I am not going anywhere", (iii) Deleting a Discord post which criticizes him within 5min. Instead of addressing the issues, getting personal.
[3]
Involve the people more who care about the game (Balance, Maps, Casting, Devs)
Balance:
I think it was pretty good. My plans were to have an official Balance team that steers the direction. My idea was to give that role to Happy, Widow and Punsho. Sure, they disagree a lot but I don't think that is a bad thing. Those compromises could be good for all of us. Unfortunately, multiple of them already said they don't want to be forced to be in a group with the others. That is really a pity, I wish people could be more professional about disagreements and try to keep discussions more civil, but well. I also learned by now that the mastermind behind the balance is actually goat, maybe he wants to have some official role? My idea was further to give the "Balance team" some power, as in, the normal RAGL admins would not interfere in their decision making. The team should of course be able to include the community opinion about balance issues.
Maps:
Same here, I thought WhoCares and Widow could form a "RAGL Map Team". Widow, and maybe others, could review maps and make sure they fulfill RAGL standards. WhoCares then at the end produces the final RAGL maps, once it is clear which maps have been selected.
Also, I think the map selection process should be 100% transparent:
(1) Make a "Call for Maps" post.
(2) Evaluate maps if they fulfill the standards
(3) Make a full community vote what players want to play
(4) Create and Public Map pack and start playing!
I disliked that there was some kind of "behind the scenes" things ongoing in the map selection process. It was published just before it started, while some RAGL pros knew already which maps are being played. I was als disappointed that there was never a vote, which was mentioned somewhere, I think in the forum thread?
Casting:
Help Casters and Players get together. Make a public Calender, where players, who agreed on a date and are both ok with it being casted, could register it so that (1) Casters may choose to make a session then and (2) also all players can plan their day/week according to certain games. It could increase the viewership massively. Currently, it is like this: "I am online, oh, there is a Masters game ongoing in a lobby server, lucky me".
Devs:
Well, obviously trying to find common ground and see how the game can reach both, a certain level of depth for the competitive community as well as keeping to a certain degree true to the original game. There are already ideas about different "configs". I wish that discussion is being picked up again.
[4]
Thinking about using technology more, so players can focus on the game
We are not bad in this, but as I mentioned before, what about a calendar, where players optionally add dates when they play? Is Google Docs really the best choice? Is the replay upload to Discord channel a good idea? How do other communities organize these kinds of events, are there lessons to be learned from them?
As the badge thing was mentioned:
I think they should be given out way more easily. Professional games also shower you with them. Gamification is a thing and it works to reward players, also for smaller things.
Why not:
- Give RAGL Master 1-3 a badge and Minion 1-3 as well (not saying that because of myself :>)
- As well as any tournament who got more than I don't know, 10 players? 12?
- I proposed in the academy to offer a badge to students who made it to level 4. net said that might create too much overhead. Not sure about that?
RAGL server
I was skeptical at first, but think it was from a technical point of view pretty good. It separates different focuses: OpenRA: Tech and more, Academy: Teaching, RAGL: Competitive.
The only issue I see is that it promotes a certain level of tribalism in this community with the constant "us vs them" talk. I tried to stay away from that, but well, I still think that does not disqualify the separation. People should just be smart and not join that "game".
[4]
Repair relationship with OpenRA devs
See above. The fact that the RAGL admin is not in the OpenRA server, and the head maintainer (I hope I got that right) is not on the RAGL server is pretty sad and it is clear that there is an issue. Als that certain "high-level" people are not talking with each other.
[5]
Check if Ladder-Servers could replace RAGL in the mid-future with Monthly Champions
I am excited about this due to my time in Command & Conquer: Generals (and zero hour) where I was pretty active in the competitive community.
The monthly ladder was the highlight of the month. There were 1v1 champions, 2v2 champs (not so sure about this one tbh) and Clan Champions. Our clan sucked, but it was still a lot of fun. We were pretty proud to have made it one month into the top 20. Good times. I am still in touch with my 2v2 mate, as he is now my insurance guy^^ I tried to get him to play this game, but he is kinda busy, but I am still working on it.
Back then, we also had to report all games ourselves into a homepage and upload the replays etc.
If we could have something like that, it would be great for the following reasons:
- reduce massively the overhead: if we can (1) automate the result reporting, (2) automate the replay uploading.
- Live rankings, stats every month, every day of the year. If this would grow, we could think even about a match-making system.
- Why not creating a ranking for 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, Clans?
- This could open the door to a lot of new players, who may never find their way into the forum/discord etc. No registration needed to play competitive, you just come and go as you want.
- Sure, some people dislike the "spam character", but for that, there exist some models to prevent the benefit of spamming.
I have to admit I choose a poor wording, as I would have preferred a ladder. But of course it does not need to replace the RAGL if people prefer that. I just found that the RAGL season was too long and too much overhead.
btw, some players were arguing strongly in favor in the beginning to create a large table. I warned that this might not be a good idea. Guess what? The players who were the most vocal about it played in Masters (smaller table) and only started playing at the very end of the season. Those who were not in favor were stuck in a larger table and had to deal with the consequences. Not everything which looks fun on paper works out great in reality
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This became a lot longer as I expected. I tried to structure it a bit more. You may just read the parts you are interested in.
I am happy to respond to questions in a civil manner, but don't feel like responding to certain accusations. Thanks to those who kept a clear head and tried to have a constructive discussion.